Blacktail Deer Plateau And the two of us went up in smoke

"nor would i," lasher responded quietly, stung anew by peregrine's insinuation that he was weak. but junior must be avenged. were taltos the sort to target the innocent, he would devise a way to carry out junior's murderous intentions, but the devil's children were innocent. all of them. cruelly he predicted that once they had gotten to an age, they would be forced from the nest and tossed aside in favour of a new brood, and such would the cycle continue until peregrine and fox passed their childbearing years, or succumbed to death.

he was silent for a long series of moments; the man nodded. "i will guard our gates if you go, dante," lasher answered. for a seething moment, he remembered how he had felt strongly toward the silver man -- perhaps the feeling remained, though buried beneath the pain they had suffered.

and so he did not proffer a touch -- he allowed the alpha the space he had put between them. dante's words were a vaguely veiled insistence that he provoke no wolf of the caldera, and lasher intended not to go there again -- himself. jaw tensed, he remained as he was, for the other's words, or a dismissal.